That would be the definition of “relatively rare”.
Compared to the 4 a day who die in swimming pools.
Maybe people just get pissed off at reading all the news reports about needless tragedies caused by idiots with guns, and maybe we get a little bit tired of hearing the cops say, “It was an accident” and not file charges. I’m sure the grandpa in this story is filled with remorse … fat lot of good it’ll do his kids who provided him with a grandson for target practice.
But there’s nothing to be done about it, right?
You just want to derail the thread because you recognize that you have no defense on logical grounds here.
What, exactly, is he supposed to be defending?
The idea that we shouldn’t enact criminal penalties against egregiously careless gun owners like Grandpa here. And that judge who let her four year old granddaughter get into her purse while shopping and fire the gun she kept there. And, frankly, a hell of a lot of other people.
Didnja read the OP?
So what about the 42 people a day that are injured? Anyway you try to spin this, way too many people are shot accidentally in the USA DAILY.
The dumbasses who are shooting them should be charged. Or if it is kids, the adults that have left the loaded gun within reach of kids should be charged.
I am not a gun freak nor am I an anti-gun fanatic. I am Canadian tho, and I find the American mindset with their guns stupid.
There shouldn’t be criminal penalties for an accident, and that’s exactly what this was. An accident. An accident where a man killed his child’s child. Hunting is an activity that comes with a certain degree of risk. Did the man make a horrible mistake that will haunt him for the rest of his days? Of course. Was it careless? You bet. Should he be sent to prison or whatever criminal penalty you have in mind because of it? Absolutely not. This incident and the one with the judge and the hand gun have almost nothing in common besides firearms.
Yes, but I didn’t realize it was Argent’s sworn duty to argue against such things.
You do realize that its uncommon for accidents involving death of a family member to be criminally charged unless there are other circumstances, right?
And I find Canadian attitudes equally idiotic. So what?
You say “too many”, but that really does nothing to fortify your point. You have no idea what the nature of those injuries are, and the only particularly relevant statistic here is the number of deaths. I think the number is remarkably low when you take into consideration the number of people in this country, as well as the number who own guns. Comparing deaths with days of the year makes no sense at all.
It is possible, I suppose, that he agrees completely with the OP and just objects to the term gun fetishist. But not very likely. I see a guy trying to derail a thread and I’m calling him on it.
You may be right, but I don’t think it’s really all that unreasonable to call someone on emotionally charged language in an OP. That was a pretty blatant example of it.
I wouldn’t really know which side of the debate to go with until I had studied the US law pertaining to accidental deaths, but I doubt I would get extremely worked up about either side. The “gun-fetishist” comment in the OP, however, made me think “WTF?”
No, you’re not.
You’re trying to advance an anti-gun agenda by making an attack on someone who objects to the OP’s stereotyping of the grandfather.
No one, pro-gun or anti-gun, is saying that this is not a stupid, senseless accident.
But by labeling the grandfather as a “gun fetishist,” the strong implication, especially in the TITLE of the thread, is that this man was so obsessed with just being around guns that safety didn’t matter to him. Accidents can happen to anyone. Because it happened to a guy who was hunting with a firearm doesn’t make him evil.
Look at it this way, Evil Captor: Plenty of people who are (normally perfectly safe and considerate of their partners) die in bondage accidents every year. Do you want people looking at YOU as some kind of sick freak who gets off on wantonly hurting other people, just because of that?
Well… are they in velvet?
I would agree that anyone careless enough to wander through the woods indiscriminately pointing a loaded weapon is also going to be a danger behind the wheel of an automobile and possibly in any situation where forethought and consideration are required. This was stupidity on the part of an individual, an unwillingness to reasonably and properly mitigate the risks while participating in an activity that posed an inherent danger. The problem wasn’t with a gun, it was with an attitude.
As for what was implied by the “fetish” comment, It would have seemed less boorish had this been Sailboat’s first thread questioning the activities of gun owners, but it’s not.
That’s ridiculous. For all we know, the gun was pulled in the direction of the 14-year-old when he accidently snagged it on the branch. Sometimes freak accidents happen to people who are extremely cautious. I’m not saying this is the case here, but we have no idea if he was “indiscriminately pointing a loaded weapon”. He might have been, he might not have been.
Wrong. I’m trying to keep the thread from being derailed. It’s about the necessity for some legal prosecution for egregious violations of gun safety rules. As the OP states, we legally penalize people who are stupid with cars, why don’t we legally penalize people who are stupid with guns, which, lets face it, are expressly designed to cause death and injury and hence are about the most dangerous tools that ordinary folks use.
Not a point I have been trying to make. People HAVE been saying that there should be no prosecutions for such stupidity, I would like to know their logic.
Yeah, and the truck driver on I-75 who looked up to watch a plane landing at Atlanta airport and hence killed three young students on their way home from college when he plowed into the back of their car a few years ago isn’t evil, either. But he still got charged. Why shouldn’t grandpa get charged?
I’ll need a cite for this amazingly irrelevant argument. And don’t go counting erotic asphyxiation as a form of bondage. “Plenty of” … pull the other one!
As an avid hunter who’s often in the company of others, the notion someone wouldn’t employ whatever caution is necessary to insure that even a checked weapon is never allowed to swing toward another is disturbing. But he was doing this with a round chambered? With the safety off? That IS NOT what can be characterized as a “freak accident”, nor is he being “extremely cautious.”
Obviously, his weapon was very loaded. Obviously, his consideration for safe practices was very indiscriminate.
It’s pretty simple from a civics standpoint, actually. The automobile is a necessary part of American life, its use is pervasive, and it is of vital importance to both interstate commerce and to travel. That so many people use it means that government places the onus on the individual drivers- in other words, driving on the highway or on roads does not mean that you assume the risk of another’s negligent conduct.
Firearms, on the other hand, specifically hunting, is a recreational activity (commercial hunters are regulated differently), is not so pervasive, and does not have the same effect on commerce or travel. Thus, the government is comfortable, and we, as a people desirous of liberty are satisfied with the following arrangement: the government does not regulate what it cannot or is not required to regulate, and those who choose to engage in the activity are comfortable assuming a greater degree of risk.
Not a complicated theory, and maybe not what you personally might like, but the general idea is that government doesn’t stick its regulatory interest into places whgere it is unnecessary or where the rights are reserved to the people.
Just because you disagree with it doesn’t make it irrelevant. Try to follow along here:
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“Bondage,” or whatever you want to call it and its subfetishes, is, between consenting adults, a harmless if nontraditional expressive pastime. As is hunting.
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Both “bondage” and hunting carry some risk of harm to the participants regardless of the amount of care one exercises.
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Both “bondage” and hunting are rights reserved to the People, bondage under the fundamental right to privacy, and hunting under the fundamental right to bear arms (I have consolidated these arguments, because I have no desire to type out pages of Constitutional theory).
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Sooner or later, an accident with either one of these pastimes will make news. Such an hunting accident causes outcry to the effect of “regulation and criminal charges are the answer;” the rationale is that THIS will either force people to be safe or punish them for their wrongdoing. Yet I have never heard anyone suggest that the government ought to regulate or somehow involve itself in the bedroom.
To charge the Grandpa with some kind of “recklessness” charge, the prosecutor would have to prove that the Grandpa was doing something he should have reasonably realised was dangerous.
I am not a gun expert, but I assume for that weapon to discharge, several things need to be “just so”:
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Trigger must be moved. Is walking around with a gun in thick underbrush criminally stupid? I don’t think that this can be avoided while hunting, so IMO, no. (Walking around with your finger inside the trigger guard can be stupid, IMO.)
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Round must be in firing chamber. This doesn’t seem to me, on it’s own, to be criminally stupid, when hunting. As mentioned, the act of chambering a round can be loud, spooking game.
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safety off. This is a biggie, IMO. The safety should always be on, unless your taking aim at the target.
Tripping and falling, or having the gun bumped by branches, resulting in the gun being pointed (however briefly) at a fellow hunter is a foreseeable danger, but I don’t know how this can be regulated, and I don’t know if it would be fair to judge someone with 20-20 hindsight that the defendant was reckless here. I suppose you can leave that for a jury to decide, but I dunno, it still seems a little subjective.
I would like to ask the OP “What is it you wish done to Grandpa?”
The thing to consider is what you are trying to accomplish with criminal punishment.
Is it to raise awareness in gun safety?
Is it to seek some form of retribution or justice for the victim(s)?
This Grandpa might have been hunting safely for 50+ years, and finally has an accident.
What purpose is served by imprisoning him for involuntary manslaughter?
There are cases were people have been charged with reckless endangerment in regards to gun safety. Google gives me some.
It seems to me that the District Attorney has some discretion as to whether Grandpa was reckless enough to fall under current statutes.
Do you have evidence of some kind that this particular DA is soft on gun recklessness?
Or is it just your general perception that America in general is soft on gun accidents?